September 28 Fishing Report

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In the fall, generation on Lake Taneycomo is dictated mainly by Table Rock’s lake level. After last week’s rain, Table Rock rose a couple of feet and now rests just below 917 feet, two feet above power pool.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is under a flow restriction. Every fall, the dissolved oxygen levels deep below Table Rock’s surface drop to almost zero. We get our water from a pipe that’s 130 feet below the level 915-foot level in Table Rock. That’s where the low-oxygen water is and that’s what runs through the turbines. The state of Missouri deems six parts per million the minimum for good water quality, but the Corps does not have to abide by state law, settings its minimum as four parts per million. The Corps has to do one of two things to bring the dissolved oxygen level up to a point where fish can survive below the dam. First, when officials turn on and run a turbine, they will only fill it partially, giving it a washing-machine, sloshing effect — and adding oxygen. They also inject liquid oxygen into the turbines, which is very expensive.

Water temperatures have a lot to do with how our trout fare in the fall and the low DO periods. The colder the water is the better trout do. Right now it’s 50 degrees which is very good for this time of year.

The restriction at this time is 110 mw. If you look at SPA’s generation schedule site - http://www.swpa.gov/generationschedules.aspx – and pick a day like tomorrow – http://www.swpa.gov/gen/mon.htm – you’ll see the plan is to run 25 mw all day. That’s 1/2 a turbine. If you look down on the list of dams, Table Rock #13 shows a maximum of 230 mw or 15,100 cubic feet per second. A half a unit isn’t much at all. If you’re boating, you’ll have to watch the gravel bars at Short Creek and above even though there’s current. If you’re wading, you’ll be able to get out on the big bar below Outlet #3 and fish the pockets there.

Now for the fishing . . .

The last few days we’ve had mixed accounts but mainly reports of slow fishing. There’s plenty of trout in the lake, especially from Lilleys’ Landing upstream. The rainbows stocked the last week have been from the hatchery in Neosho which is operated by the federal government Those trout are always a lot smaller than the rainbows we get from the Shepherd of the Hills Hatchery. We call them silver bullets. People that have been fishing below our place throwing lures have said they’ve had a lot of follows but no takers. These rainbows will bite — it’s just a matter of time. PowerBait Gulp Eggs will get them, drifting them on the bottom.

I did well fishing with clients on Friday morning, using drift rigs and dragging night crawlers on the bottom from Fall Creek to Short Creek. We did try below Short but didn’t do well. The rainbows we caught were decent but not the size Bill Babler has been catching in that area. I’d say they averaged 13 inches. These rainbows were colored up, and their meat was orange which means they’d been in the lake for a while.

When cleaning these rainbows, I found something I’ve never seen before — small crawdads. They were small, about 3/8-inch long. At first glance, I thought they were freshwater shrimp. It would be very cool if crawdad took hold and grew in our upper lake, providing a much needed, additional food source.

I did get out and fish yesterday afternoon, concentrating on the area from Lookout Island to Fall Creek. One unit of flow allows you to do a lot of things along the bluff bank including throwing dries in the eddies and dead drifting different nymphs. I tried a #14 olive elk hair caddis for a little while but had no takers. So I dropped a #14 red zebra under a Palsa indicator three feet deep and drifted it where I could in the current and eddies. I didn’t get rich but did catch a half dozen on the long drift to the narrows before heading back up to try the other side of the lake.

On the shallow side, I found more rainbows, but they seemed to be grouped up. I’d catch a couple in one area and then nothing for along time. I tied a #14 gray scud under the zebra and caught one but because of the wind, I tangled up twice in a row and gave up on the combination.

The last couple of drifts, before getting dark, I went back to my old faithful — my sculpin-colored 1/8^th -ounce jig. I worked the middle of the lake and kept it as close to the bottom as possible. I was getting multiply strikes on almost every cast but just could not hook ‘em. I then trimmed the marabou on my jig and started catching them a bit better but still missed more than I hooked.